Over the past two years, the House Freedom Caucus has bludgeoned GOP leadership. It has torpedoed Republican legislation that didn’t tack far enough right, and even drove a speaker from office.

All of a sudden, though, Donald Trump has defanged the tiger — or, at least, that’s what its Republican critics are hoping.

Advertisement

The Freedom Caucus amassed power far beyond its 40-some members by fiercely opposing any move by GOP leaders to accommodate President Barack Obama. But that legislative dynamic was just relegated to the history books.

With Republicans about to control the White House and both chambers of Congress — and with Trump now the undisputed leader of the party — the group’s critics say the Freedom Caucus may become the textbook definition of rebels without a cause.

“In a Trump world, I don’t think the Freedom Caucus has legs. ... I don’t know what their purpose is anymore,” said one senior Republican source. “They existed to leverage concessions out of House Republican leadership, but [Speaker Paul] Ryan is no longer the lead Republican negotiator in the room. Now, that person is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Freedom Caucus members rejected the notion that they're on the cusp of irrelevance. But they conceded their strategy and tactics will likely change. While they once relished being a thorn in the side of Washington's Republican leaders, some are hoping to find new purpose as foot soldiers for a president-elect seeking to shake up Washington.

“Trump wants to turn Washington upside down — that was his first message and his winning message. We want the exact same thing,” said caucus member Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.). “To the extent that he’s got to convince Republicans to change Washington, we’re there to help him … and I think that makes us Donald Trump’s best allies in the House.”

To be sure, the group isn’t completely out of leadership's hair yet. Multiple Freedom Caucus members told POLITICO that while they’re not currently plotting to try to remove Ryan from his speakership in the coming weeks, should Trump decide he can’t work with the Wisconsin Republican, many of them are willing to vote against Ryan’s reelection.

But for now, they’re talking about making peace, not mutiny.

In an interview Thursday, caucus co-founder Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said he has been corresponding frequently with Trump officials and fellow lawmakers outside his group of conservative colleagues over how to enact some of Trump's top priorities. He said he's working with House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) to flesh out tax reform pitches the group could potentially back, a major Trump priority. He also expressed an interest in working with Budget Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) to pass a budget in the coming weeks — a step that would unlock a fast-track procedure, called reconciliation, that Republicans could use to dismantle Obamacare.

“I, for one, believe the majority of the HFC members are 110 percent behind keeping the promises that President-elect Donald Trump made during the campaign, and making sure that we’ve returned Washington, D.C., back to its rightful owner,” Meadows said.

That's a far cry from the Freedom Caucus strategy of old, when members focused on winning concessions in exchange for supporting GOP leaders' priorities.

A senior House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Trump's election "eliminated" the need for the Freedom Caucus, adding that Trump in the Oval Office means members will have no reason to buck the party’s leadership from here on out. "The Freedom Caucus only mattered when Obama was president," said the GOP lawmaker. "Now that Trump has won, they're irrelevant. They're not going to go against Trump; he's stronger in their own districts than all of them."

While Meadows conceded that he does see a “shift" in their situation, he argued it’s because “in the past what we have been asked to do is compromise our principles and our priorities in the hopes of getting something that was already watered down.” Calling the group “irrelevant” because it's not trying to tackle GOP leadership, however, “misses the whole reason we were established," he continued — to advance conservative ideas.

Multiple caucus members likewise argued that the voters who carried Trump to the White House — many of them angry, middle-class Americans who feel they're not being heard by their leaders — are the same types of people who’ve supported their anti-establishment cause all along.

Trump’s view on certain policies, such as immigration and trade, are also more closely aligned with the Freedom Caucus’ than with those of top GOP leaders, who back most of the major trade deals and are open to giving undocumented workers a path toward legal status.

Caucus member Dave Brat said that validates the group and makes it more, not less, relevant.

"I would suggest what [Trump] saw is exactly what HFC has been talking about … illegal immigration, bad trade deals,” the Virginia Republican said. “We've been on the right page. I think we were validated by a seismic historic election.”

At the same time, however, the group has a number of members who were staunch Trump critics — with some even suggesting he was a phony conservative.

“You’ve got a new president who is painfully pragmatic ... and you have a significant number of members in the House Republican Conference who can be excruciatingly ideological, very doctrinaire. So how is this going to work out?” asked Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.). “When Donald Trump says, ‘Hey ... get on board!,’ do those folks turn around and then support something knowing that they have a long history and record on it?"

Idaho Republican Raúl Labrador, a caucus member who campaigned with Trump, said Freedom Caucus members agree with Trump on a whole lot, even if they have some differences with the future president. He suggested the group might find a new sweet spot as the intermediary between the Trump administration and leaders like Ryan, who might be more reluctant to embrace some of his more controversial policies.

“I think HFC will be the bridge between House leadership and this administration,” he said. “Paul Ryan follows what The Wall Street Journal [says], Trump is more populist, and HFC is somewhere in between the two. So in some sense I think we’ll actually be a bridge — because the HFC is not completely populist, but we’re also not completely kowtowing to The Wall Street Journal.”

Labrador pointed out that Democrats are likely to oppose much of Trump’s agenda, meaning the administration will need HFC members to get behind its ideas if it hopes to pass anything in the House — giving the caucus at least some influence. “In order to get a majority of Republicans in the first 100 days, when we’re going to be pushing an agenda, especially one that’s opposed by the Democrats, you’re going to need the Freedom Caucus more than ever,” he said.

“I’m trying to imagine who would suggest we’re no longer relevant,” Mulvaney said. “It seems like the exact opposite. Those who are feeding you this narrative, I bet would like us to go away. That's not going to happen.”